by Erin Wright
Her plan failed.
She could feel it rolling off him in waves – he didn’t believe her. Or maybe he did believe her but he was going to argue anyway.
Hannah felt anger and frustration rise up in her chest. Why oh why were parents always like this? Why did they never want to believe that their child could be anything less than a perfect angel at school, even though they caused plenty of problems at home? Somehow, some way, parents believed that their kids had personality transplants every day when they came to school, and then their angel-like perfection disappeared each time on the way home.
Yup, it was written all over his face – he didn’t believe a word she’d just told him.
“So,” she demanded angrily, truly and thoroughly pissed off now, “is this typical for your daughter? Does she always go around kicking kids who haven’t done a thing to her?”
Her libido could go jump in a lake. Never had it been so very wrong about the male specimen.
“Well now,” he growled back, his eyebrows drawing together as he glowered down at her, “just ‘cause you didn’t see nothin’ don’t mean that it didn’t happen before school or during recess or—”
“Mr. Morland,” Hannah interrupted him crisply, “this is my twelfth year teaching. I am well aware that students can get into fights or arguments out of the range of my eyes and ears. The problem is, Brooklyn refuses to tell me what caused this problem. I talked to Dayton and he claims ignorance. Sure, kids say things all the time to get out of trouble, but in the fifth grade, they’re not good at lying yet, thank God, and I can assure you, Dayton really has no clue. So, I’ve come to you – are there problems with Brooklyn this school year? What has she been telling you at home?”
“We don’t see each other outside of school!” he retorted, pissed at her and not even trying to hide it. “So your guess is as good as mine!”
“You don’t see each other…?” Hannah repeated softly, totally confused. She knew that Sarah had primary custody of Brooklyn, but to not see each other at all…
And then it made sense. The missing pieces of the puzzle fitted into place.
Duh.
No wonder he’d left Mr. Petrol’s and had gotten a job as the Cleveland Elementary School janitor. Being the night manager for Mr. Petrol’s was probably not his dream job, but she couldn’t imagine that being a school janitor was any better and most likely worse. For weeks now, she’d been trying to put the pieces together but hadn’t been able to figure it out.
Now that she understood…it explained so much.
She felt a rush of understanding and admiration run through her at the dedication of the man in front of her. Not willing to let his ex-wife win, he’d taken up mopping and garbage dumping just so he could see his daughter during the school day.
Now that was impressive.
Chapter 7
Elijah
Dammit! He hadn’t meant to let that slip. Admittin’ to people that he couldn’t even see his own daughter whenever he wanted to; that his ex-wife had that much control over his life…
It sucked ass.
And what sucked even more was the pity he saw in Hannah’s eyes. He didn’t want pity from her. He didn’t want pity from no one.
“Is Sarah fighting you in court over custody?” she asked quietly, her blue eyes distorted behind the thick lenses of her glasses.
He had a fleeting moment where he wondered what she’d look like without them damn glasses on, and then he shoved that thought away. Don’t go there, Eli.
“Yeah,” he admitted begrudgingly. “After her parents died in that car wreck outside of town, she’s been using all her inheritance to beat me in court. Sad to say, money usually wins.”
Yeah, he was bitter. He weren’t afraid to admit it.
“So that’s why you became the janitor here,” Hannah said slowly, as if stating a simple fact out loud as she solved a mystery she’d been wonderin’ ‘bout for a long time.
“Well…I…how did you know?” he sputtered indignantly. Why he took his job were a personal thing, and not somethin’ he discussed openly. As in, with anyone at all. His brother Aaron had guessed at the reason when Elijah had told him about the job change, but Elijah had refused to dignify that guess with a response. He didn’t like other people in his business.
And he sure as hell didn’t like that Hannah had figured it out.
“You can’t see Brooklyn after school or on the weekends because her mother is fighting you – and winning – in court, so you took a job here so you could see her during lunch and recess. Not exactly a Sherlock-Holmes moment for me, Mr. Morland,” she said dryly.
“No one else figured it out,” he protested.
“Or they did and they just haven’t said anything to you,” she countered.
Huh.
Truth be told, that were an even more awful idea. People standing around and jawing about him? Just the idea of it sent chills racin’ down his spine.
Desperate to talk about something else – anything else – he realized that his best chance at a quick getaway was to tell the woman what she wanted to hear and get his ass out of her classroom ASAP.
“I’ll talk to Brooksy tomorrow,” he promised begrudgingly. “See if I can get anything outta her.”
Already, he were dreadin’ the conversation. Considerin’ how closed-mouth Brooksy was being ‘bout the whole thing, chances were that he were more likely to get water from a rock, but hell, he’d give it the ol’ college try. Maybe he’d pack a lunch and they could sit together in his janitor’s closet and chat. Without anywhere to escape to, she’d hafta talk.
Or, they could have the world’s quietest lunch. Really, it was 50/50 at this point.
Tugging on the brim of his baseball cap, he hurried outta Hannah’s room before she could give him any more pity-filled stares from behind those damn ugly glasses.
Chapter 8
Hannah
Hannah took a sip of her delicious black coffee as she listened to her besties whine that Gage Dyer didn’t seem to realize that any of them existed.
Or, more to the point, drool over his muscles while whining that he didn’t know they existed.
Who says you can’t multitask?
“He can pick me up and swing me over his shoulder any time he wants to,” Carla sighed dreamily, her chin propped in her hand as she watched Gage, the owner, baker, and current delivery boy of the Muffin Man, carry a 50-pound sack of flour on his shoulder into the back of the bakery. Carla was the owner of Happy Petals, the only flower shop in town, and she had to be the most romantic, starry-eyed person Hannah had ever met. There wasn’t a person on the planet better suited to be a flower shop owner than Carla. She believed, with all of her heart and soul, that true love was out there for every person who just wanted it enough.
Which just made it all the more depressing that she was the Vice President of the Early Spinster’s Club.
“He’s one of the few men in town who could throw me over his shoulder and carry me around,” Michelle said admiringly as the two of them openly watched Gage go back for another sack of flour. Michelle ran the city’s animal shelter and as much as Carla loved flowers and romance, that’s how much Michelle loved animals. In fact, Hannah was a little surprised that Michelle was even drooling over Gage. As far as Hannah knew, Gage didn’t own a single animal, which she sort of assumed took him right off the eligibility list in Michelle’s eyes.
“Those muscles,” Michelle whispered. “I bet he could wrestle a Great Dane into compliance without breaking into a sweat.”
Ah.
And there it was – the reason why Michelle was willing to overlook Gage’s lack of ownership of an animal.
Well, and as President of the Early Spinster’s Club, maybe Michelle was becoming less finicky about potential dates as time went on. Sawyer, Idaho wasn’t exactly bristling with handsome, single men interested in the three of them. Their best shot, Adam Whitaker – the local vet and a hunky man in his own right – had hooked
up with Kylie VanLueven over the summer. Adam was a real sweetie, but despite Hannah’s best efforts, he’d never so much as looked at her twice.
Which, to be clear, her “best effort” was her asking him to come to her classroom and give presentations on being a vet to her fifth grade students. For her, that was practically like her stripping down and throwing herself across his lap while yelling, “Take me, take me, your willing sex slave!”
Practically just like that.
He’d always been willing to come and present, of course – he was one of the most genuinely nice people she’d ever met – but that was as far as it got. For her, anyway. Kylie VanLueven had been a student of hers many moons ago, so the fact that Adam had started dating her instead…
It sure didn’t help Hannah feel like less of an old maid, that was for darn sure.
Hannah watched with a detached, clinical interest as Gage walked by again, yet another sack of flour flung carelessly over his shoulder like he was carrying a bag of feathers, muscles bulging and rippling with every step. She sighed as she wrinkled her nose. He was cute, yeah – even a blind person could see that – but he was just so…so muscular. He looked like he’d smoosh her flat in bed. She didn’t need or even desire a guy with muscles bulging everywhere. She liked them a little more sleek.
Strong, sure, but not in-your-face strong.
Capable of getting things done, but not of bench-pressing a caboose after breakfast.
Oh, and absolutely, definitely, 100% should not be the father of a student.
Was that too much to ask?
She heaved another sigh.
“…Earth to Hannah!” Michelle practically hollered, snapping her fingers in front of Hannah’s nose. Startled, Hannah whipped her head back and stared at her friend in surprise.
“You’ve been in your own little world for ages,” Carla put in kindly, as always trying to play the part of the peacemaker and smoother-outer-of-waters. “What’re you thinking about?”
“And what was that sigh all about?” Michelle asked bluntly.
“Sigh? I sighed?” Hannah asked, taken aback. She tried to remember what’d just happened.
Had she sighed? And if she had, surely it wasn’t that big of a deal, right?
“Like the weight of the world is on your shoulders,” Michelle supplied.
“Orrrr…” Carla said brightly, ever the optimist, “you were thinking about someone. So, tell us, who was it?” she asked eagerly, assuming – as always – that love was at the bottom of every sigh and tear and smile.
“I was just thinking—” Hannah waved her hand in the air dismissively. “You know. Things.”
Michelle and Carla cocked their eyebrows at her in a matching move that Hannah wasn’t sure if it should make her laugh or cry.
“Well, that muscles are…they can be too much of a good thing. You know? I like ‘em more…compact. Less likely to crush me on accident or something.” She waved her hand around again. “Like Elijah Morland,” she added. Just for demonstrative purposes, of course. Not that she’d been thinking of him in particular, but just as an example. “Slender, well built, plenty of muscles, but not too many.”
Michelle and Carla stared at her like she’d just sprouted a horn out of her forehead.
“What?” she finally asked defensively.
“Holy cow,” Michelle said, whistling her amazement, “Hannah Lambert has gone and fallen in love.”
And then they were busy snatching her glasses off her face and talking about contacts and maybe she should get her hair layered but being such a beautiful red color, she didn’t need to dye it, and someone – Hannah thought it was Carla but it was hard to tell since the world had just become this wavy, indistinct place filled with moving dark blobs – was running their fingers through her hair and holding it up as they talked about what could be done to it and—
“Stop!” Hannah bellowed.
The two fell silent along with the rest of the Muffin Man, not a sound to be heard in the bakery as Hannah glared at her two best friends.
They were, no doubt, shocked to their core that Hannah had actually yelled something. Well, she could only guess that’s what was happening since she couldn’t see their faces, but she was pretty sure they were probably shocked.
They’d joked, more than once, that Hannah wouldn’t yell if her hair was on fire.
Darn it all, maybe she’d yell if they were talking about layering her hair. They just hadn’t realized it until today.
She squinted as hard as she could, until she spotted something that looked vaguely like her glasses, and snatched them out of someone’s hands. Shoving them back onto her face, she glowered at the two women she’d previously loved with all her might. That love was starting to disappear the longer they talked about cutting her hair like she was some mannequin without an opinion of her own.
“I’m not in love,” she hissed as the bakery finally resumed its normal noisy chatter around them. “I was just…using an example. I’ve been seeing him a lot lately at the school, so he just happened to be the guy who popped into my head.”
They continued to stare at her, not saying a word, their facial expressions saying it all for them.
“And even if I was,” she finally protested when the silence became too much to bear, “it wouldn’t matter. He’s the father of one of my students, he’s my coworker, and oh, then there’s my dad…can you even imagine? What a disaster that would be. Then there’s my kids this year…I’m having a way harder time with bullying and fighting than I ever have before. The class just isn’t coming together as a cohesive whole and I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve got cute little girls kicking boys and parents drunk as a skunk at 3:30 in the afternoon and…and I can’t. I just can’t.”
She crossed her arms defensively and glared self-righteously at the two of them. There. She’d told them.
Michelle and Carla just sat there for a moment longer, and then Michelle said softly, “Are you sure about that? Or do you just not want to take a chance on love?”
Hannah settled back against the booth of the bakery, staring down at her now-cold coffee.
She hated the question.
Hated that Michelle thought to ask it.
Hated that Michelle might be right.
Chapter 9
Elijah
“All right, Brooksy, truth time,” Elijah said bluntly. His daughter’s feet was hangin’ off the edge of the five-gallon bucket, not quite reaching the ground as they sat and ate lunch in his closet. The smell of cleaning supplies were overpowering but as Elijah figured, it were just part of putting the screws into Brooksy. Maybe she’d be more likely to talk to him if she weren’t happy ‘bout being cooped up in there with him.
“I talked to Miss Lambert yesterday,” he continued, “and she told me about you kicking Dayton. She says he don’t know what the hell is going on – why you’s mad at him – and that you ain’t talkin’ neither.”
Silence.
“Brooksy, you gotta talk to me. Is Dayton beatin’ you up after school? Is he teasin’ you while you’re standing in line? Is he pulling your hair? You gotta tell me what’s going on.”
“He ain’t bein’ mean to me,” Brooksy burst out and then clamped her mouth shut so tight, he wondered if he’d hafta use a crowbar to get it open again.
“He ain’t mean to you?” Eli repeated slowly. “But, is he being mean to someone else?”
Silence.
“Brooksy—” he said warningly, his patience just about gone.
“Juan Miller,” she burst out. “Dayton called him a spic. Daddy, what’s a spic?”
Eli was choking and gasping for air as he stared at his ten-year-old daughter. How was it that her classmates was using language like that? She was too little for that shit.
And then, it hit him. “Hold on, how come you’re upset ‘bout Dayton callin’ Juan that, if you don’t know what it means?”
She rolled her eyes, a ten year old goin’ on seventeen. “
The way he said it,” she told him in her best ‘duh’ voice. “It weren’t no compliment, that’s for sure.”
“No, it ain’t that,” Elijah said dryly.
“So, what does it mean?” Brooksy persisted.
Elijah rubbed at his jaw, his sandwich forgotten in his other hand as he stared down at his daughter. His mini-me.
He didn’t want to have this conversation with her; he really, really didn’t.
But she was just like her momma in some ways – when she wanted to, she could make stainless steel seem downright pliable, and she’d keep going after this like a dog after a bone until she got her answer. It was best that he be the one to give it to her.
“Juan…he’s Abby and Wyatt’s little boy, right?” Elijah said, stalling for time.
“Kinda,” Brooksy replied, her forehead squished up as she tried to sort it out in her head. “He says it’s gonna be official at the end of October. What does that mean?”
Here, finally, was a topic that Elijah were more comfortable talking about. The Millers was quite a bit older than him, by about five or six years, but still, everyone in town knew their story and what they’d gone through together, and about Juan’s past. If Eli were a romantic – which he damn well weren’t – even he’d be inclined to say that they was a match made in heaven, because after all, who else other than Abby would be willin’ to put up with a stubborn son-of-a-bitch like Wyatt?
